Monthly Archives: June 2010

Baby E turned six months old on Thursday. Half a year has gone by in a flash. Wasn’t this just yesterday?

Silken kissable cheeks, and deep sleepy sighs, and long cuddles on the couch…

And then I blinked and saw this:

Miss Sweetness is bubbling over with grins and hearty little chuckles. And she is a live wire: rolling every which way like a top, entangling herself under furniture; snatching anything in sight with designs of swallowing it whole.

She is busily practicing for her future career as a coloratura soprano: she sets our ears ringing with her happy warbling and shrieking.

She is a happy little girl, and at her happiest with her head swiveling to follow the progress of her adored big brothers dashing around her. She’s also tiny. She eats like a champ but we believe that allergies are preventing her properly assimilating the nutrients she takes in. Please pray that her little immune system would be properly regulated so that she can digest more fully and also find relief from the stubborn eczema. We are pursuing treatments we hope will help and aiming to avoid formula-feeding if possible; even apart from the great superiority of breastmilk, it’s quite possible E could react to even the hypoallergenic formulas. We would love prayer for our precious, joyful baby girl!

Looking dewy after her bath.

Vamping in Oma’s arms.

Chatting with Opa.

Contemplating her beloved toy dragon; probably determining the best angle at which to shove it bodily into her mouth. Don’t you just want to kiss those toes?

Thoughtful baby. This one really looks like my baby pictures, I think. Look at that little frown!

My big boy turned four on May 19th. It’s hard to wrap my mind around that. This was his first time to get truly excited about his birthday. Our celebration was small and peaceful, but I think he enjoyed it. I made him a little paper birthday crown decorated with drawings of his favorite things, and he was very interested in all his cards bearing the number 4. We opened presents at the dining room table; B had a brother-to-the-birthday-boy crown, too, although it only lasted long enough for one picture!

That night before bed, I explained to C that his biggest birthday present was yet to come: a big boy swingset! He listened with wide eyes as I explained what that would entail, and then he said gravely, “I’ll be bigger. I’ll be bigger in a few minutes.”

The instructions said swingset assembly would take 2-4 hours. Maybe that was a misprint since it took more like 24 hours of slave labor by my longsuffering dad and husband–but we now have a swingset! One evening this week, some dear friends (who are now also neighbors) stopped by to bring us our groceries (what a blessing!) and stayed to try out the swingset with us.

Our C-man is currently enthralled with shooting hoops and throwing baseballs to Daddy. He actually has quite the skills. Notice Daddy ducking just in time to avoid a baseball to the head.

B enjoyed getting in on the action, too:

The evening sunshine was shining through his curls:

That is the angelic countenance of the boy who had the following conversation with himself at the table after dessert tonight (in an apparent effort to head off our suspicions about the source of the stinky diaper smell): “Did Mommy poopy? No. Did Iiya poopy? No. Did Iiya’s bunny wabbit poopy? Yes. We’ll have some moah cake.”

And here he is watching everything from the deck with his little friend S:

Baby E preferred to watch from the safety of Daddy’s arms:

As I think about C being four years old, one of my joys is the fact that he has these two sweet young ones to play with and look after. B is his companion; the house often echoes with the sound of them looking for each other. And E is his little charge. Yesterday I went to check on the baby, a little apprehensive that I would find someone giving her overzealous hugs. Instead, I found C standing over her with his hands clasped behind his back, just watching. He is a sweet boy, with a memory like a steel trap and a delight in books and balls and doing things by himself. And he loves his brother and sister. We are so thankful for our big C!

For a few weeks, we looked out our windows into a riot of blooms. Above is the view from our living room window. The tree below was an extravagant blaze of white blossoms that reached from the dining room window up to our bedroom window. This is the first thing I saw every morning:

C and B delight in running circles through the back yard and up and down the sidewalk.

They still love books…

(B with his beloved “Peeceman Smawh”)

And they still love trains:

And their adored baby sister:

(One of the last naps she took in her sweet little bassinet. She was starting to flip herself into impossible positions and so we made the transition to the big girl crib in her very own room. Sweet and a little sad at the same time.)

And finally, something that was not at all part of my plans for this summer:

Two weeks ago tonight, I took a little tumble at the foot of the basement stairs and landed with my foot bent under me at an angle at which human limbs are apparently not intended to bend. It’s sprained and fractured, and I’m on crutches for something like 4 to 6 weeks. This does not feel much like grace. I am trying to believe that even this, somehow, is good–for me, for our family; for the kids whose routine and expectations have been turned upside down. We are receiving much grace from our family and friends. I can’t yet even move the baby from her crib to her changing table, so I am dependent on help for some of the simplest daily mommy tasks. My parents have been here for the last two weeks (my mommy conquered our endless laundry pile that had been untamed since baby E arrived!). Next week we will have a small army of friends taking shifts. I am deeply thankful. After I fell, my first thought was, “I won’t be able to run!” My second thought was, “I won’t be able to do anything! What are we going to do?!” So God is providing.

I have been turning this staggering truth over in my mind, in quiet evenings when the dishwasher is humming and damp green smells come in through the open windows from the dark lawn. I know I have dealt out, each day, what dwells indoors: anxiety, impatience and selfishness that lurk in my heart, drawn to the surface by complaining children or a tired husband or, good grief, one more poopy diaper. That’s the real me, although I didn’t truly know it before these four precious people arrived in my life to challenge my plans and preferences.

And yet: it isn’t the real me. Something deeper dwells indoors. In God’s eyes I am–Christ. I can only fit in the category of the just because Jesus “justiced” for me ( to adopt Hopkins’ creative style of verb-making). And it’s only he who can keep my goings graces.

Which brings me to what I hope this blog will be: a place to record some of the many graces that fill my life. Some are blessings I am reveling in–big baby smiles, little boy laughter, flowers blooming in my back yard. Some feel less like graces at the moment–like my broken foot (more on that later). But all come to me through the same grace that keeps me in the happy, hard or just chaotic days that constitute my goings.

Since, then, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

– Romans 5: 9-10, 19

I’ll be sharing snapshots of these graces, in words and pictures; if you want to enjoy them with us, you are welcome to read along!